Izaak Walton's Cottage, Shallowford

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Date:1958 - 1959 (c.)

Description:Izaak Walton was a famous angler and author whose best known work 'The Complete Angler' was published 1653 and is still in print.

Born in Stafford in 1593, Walton moved to London to become an apprentice draper, and later lived in Worcester and Winchester. In May 1655 he bought Halfhead Farm in Shallowford, which included this cottage where he spent some of his spare time fishing and writing.

He died in 1683 and is buried in Winchester Cathedral. In his will he left the cottage to the town of Stafford. The rent collected was to be used for charitable purposes, including the purchase of coal for the poor.

The Izaak Walton Trust bought the cottage in 1923 and opened it to the public in 1924. In 1927 a spark from a passing steam train set the thatched roof alight. The thatch was replaced by tiles, to prevent a similar accident. In 1990 Stafford Borough Council, who had become trustees of the cottage in 1956, rethatched and restored it as a typical seventeenth century cottage.

Postcard by an unidentified publisher.

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Donor ref:06_174r (226/37858)

Source: Mr Jake Whitehouse

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